NBC’s CAIR-Less Coverage

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) portrays itself as a U.S. civil rights organization. However, as numerous terrorist analysts and the U.S. government itself has noted, CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2009 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) retrial—the largest terrorism financing case in the nation’s history. NBC, however, has treated the organization as a credible source on the subject of Islamic extremism.

In an April 23, 2018 article, “John Bolton presided over anti-Muslim think tank,” NBC reporter Heidi Przybla used CAIR to attack Bolton, who is currently the National Security Adviser to President Donald Trump, and Gatestone Institute.

NBC quoted CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, who claimed that Gatestone is “a key part of the whole Islamaphobic cottage industry on the Internet.” Hooper asserted that Bolton’s association with Gatestone was “very disturbing.”

However, NBC failed to inform readers about CAIR’s troubling history. As CAMERA noted in an Aug. 9, 2016 Washington Times Op-Ed, at least five former staff or lay leaders from CAIR have been indicted, arrested or deported on weapons or terrorism-related charges. In an out of court settlement with the website www.anti-cair-net.org, the council did not contest assertions that it was founded and funded by some members of Hamas—a U.S.-designated terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip and calls for the destruction of Israel.

As CAMERA’s July 2009 Special Report “The Council on American Islamic Relations: Civil Rights or Extremism?” pointed out, CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, stated in 1994: “I am in support of Hamas.” Richard Powers, an Assistant Director for the FBI, even sent a statement to members of the U.S. Congress, stating that the bureau was ceasing official cooperation with CAIR and its executives until the council could resolve, “Whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas.”

Hooper himself was once quoted as saying that he “wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, April 4, 1993).”

Prior to working for CAIR, Hooper worked for the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which fundraised for Hamas in America. In 2004, IAP was held civilly liable in a federal district court for financing the terrorist group. That ruling was upheld in 2008. At the HLF trial it was revealed that “numerous donation checks … made payable to … IAP” were “deposited into HLF’s bank account,” in some cases with the memo line, “for Palestinian Mujahideen [holy warriors] only.”

As CAMERA has highlighted, CAIR has a history of skewing statistics and data—a charge that NBC levels at Gatestone. NBC’s treatment of CAIR as a credible source—while failing to disclose disturbing aspects of the organization’s history and ties—evidences careless reporting.